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Berlin Heritage...

...is Robert Sigmuntowski. Atmospherics and additional electronic threads generate soundscapes of compelling beauty. The electronics are an intriguing blend of crisp and dreamy. Textural threads are achieved through endless sustains of chords, which in turn are layered to achieve a lush atmosphere. Keyboard riffs emerge to entwine into undulating patterns that snake their way through the celestial environment. Some of these riffs are quite crystalline, sparkling like trails of pulsation jewels immersed in the flow. The tuneage is full of flowing sequences radiating a stately mien with their fluid melodics. And yet these cosmic pieces also possess a soothing influence, engulfing the listener in a zone of reverent gentility. The first track is almost 35 minutes long, allowing the aforementioned textural flows to nicely evolve in conjunction with gentle melodies shimmering with regal qualities. No percussion is featured. Keeping with the band's name, these compositions are a delightful example of Berlin School electronic music. Harmonic passages steeped in airy tones are seasoned by melodic material that exudes a heavenly grandeur. The listener is swept away on an ethereal tide and finds themselves surrounded by a ballet of engaging drones. It's a delightful excursion. (Matt Howarth, Sonic Curiosity)

Berlin Heritage is a newly founded...

...Em project initiated by Hannover-based composer Robert Sigmuntowski. The latter released his debut album "Land of the Rising Sun" at the start of February 2012 through Lambert Ringlage's Spheric Music label. While combining the best from old gear and stuff from the digital era, Mr Sigmuntowski describes his output as Berlin OldSchool. The music on this 70-minute album has lots of immersive and dreamy flavours touching the vintage foundations of the genre, while it takes the listener on a comfortable journey into distant lands with lovely spacious sequencers, melodic solos and cosmic textures. Especially the first track, venturing out for 34 minutes, occasionally connects to Schulze's "Moondawn", but also breaks away from it when it spreads out its dreamy wings. In addition, tasty mellotron flutes and choirs are also core elements in the surprisingly moody spacemusic of Berlin Heritage, making up a melancholic framework of music that masterfully revisits the vintage electronics '70's. Hat's off to Berlin Heritage! (Bert Strolenberg, Sonic Immersion)

Here is a great surprise!

With a name as Berlin Heritage we easily imagine towards what Robert Sigmuntowski wants to direct our listening. Molded in the reminiscences of a Berlin School that we believed dried up of its inspirations so much it was plundered to justify any reasons, Land of the Rising Sun is this kind of album that we didn't expect. An album which arrives and which amazes, as Free System Project with Impulses in 1996 or Danger in Dream and Entrance in 2001, and which reminds us how much EM can be so beautiful. [...] Can we revisit the past without be repeating? Can we pay tribute to our influences without falling in redundancy? Well it seems that yes! Land of the Rising Sun of Berlin Heritage is the proof, in the same way as Impulses and Entrance were. It is a wonderful album. Without ever fall in the plagiarism, but by touching lightly the main lines of influences of the vintages years EM, Robert Sigmuntowski weaves a magnificent album where the rhythms and ambiances of this era are skilfully interlaced in a wonderful musical weaving where all the atmospheres of that time are visited with a dexterity imprinted by a nostalgia caressed by a vision more critical than admiring, making of Land of the Rising Sun a more creative album than idolatrous. And as it writing on the guide of press; listen, dream and be drifting away! (Sylvain Lupari, Synth & Sequences)

Land of the Rising Sun...

...(70'00") is not an album where we will hear strict re-creations of vintage tracks such as "Picture Music" or "Blanche". What we find are classic works embraced and made new by a top synthesist. On his debut CD Robert Sigmuntowski, recording under the name Berlin Heritage, encounters the quiet drama and dark imaginings of the misty reality between sleep and wakefulness. Repeating structures cycle subtly through light and dark pulling us into deeper levels of our own mind. The delicate blending of sounds and repeating sequencer patterns act in the service of producing dream-like atmospherics - within which reality is quite difficult to pinpoint. Elsewhere inside this exuberant re-imagining ethereal choir and cultivated synthesizer tones provide moody accompaniment to the neural activity of the listener. And the flight of keyboard improvisations above obedient pulsing rhythms gives rise to a palpable sense of propulsion. Yet, in the end, it is through strange jagged modulations and deep somber chords that we may sense the pull of the cosmos. On Land of the Rising Sun Berlin Heritage evinces such mastery of form that this release could be mistook for a classic from the 1970s. A monument to the imagination this album's restless explorations prove that Spacemusic will never be fully conquered. Here we find an intelligence extending beyond the cold logic of machines - as well as a strong contribution to a most intriguing musical universe. (Chuck van Zyl, Star's End)